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The Jackson County Board of Commissioners unanimously authorized $6.56 million from the county’s general fund today to purchase more than 47 acres of property near the sheriff's office for the next jail. “I think we got a really good purchase,” County Administrator Danny Jordan said. “It’s zoned properly, there’s not residential, they’re not going to have competing interests, we should have very little pushback on it.” The property is off major corridors, and the property will be near a bypass currently under construction, meaning that it will have five points of access well before construction could begin. The county hopes to put a proposed taxing district to fund the jail on the November 2019 ballot, but Jordan said that the site will be important to the county regardless of voters’ decision. Having the land ready means the county can pursue other options if voters don’t approve a new jail now, though construction costs increase roughly 5 percent per year, Jordan said. “If they don’t approve it now, and they don’t approve it in 10 years, if they don’t approve it in 20 years, we can still work to afford to build a new jail without asking taxpayers,” Jordan said, adding that construction costs could be double in two decades. “I don’t think we give up if taxpayers say yes or no." More detailed costs and an architect’s rendering are expected the first week of December. Jordan emphasized his earlier estimate that the jail would cost taxpayers $100 million was the minimum. “I want to reiterate I said ‘at least’ $100 million,” Jordan told commissioners. The county has entered into an $82,478 contract with the DLR Group of Portland to design the next jail and come up with "hard costs” such as construction and materials needed to build the jail and accommodate proposed features such as expanded medical, mental health and addiction treatment space. Hard costs surrounding a 700-bed jail are around $104 million and on a 1,000-bed jail it’s $149 million, Jordan told commissioners. The 1981-built jail currently in use has 300 beds. All levels but the basement use a linear design that requires staff to monitor inmates through hallways rather than a more modern podular design which would allow jail staff to keep an eye on inmates from a central location. New plan for voters Jordan proposed a new plan to reduce costs to taxpayers from the previously proposed $1.09 per $1,000 of assessed value — a figure overwhelmingly dismissed by survey respondents earlier this year. The current jail costs about $14 million a year to operate, Jordan said. The architects will also help staff determine more definitive operation costs for the new jail, though Jordan described the new design generally as “triple the capacity at double the operation cost.” For the new plan, Jordan proposed waiting until 2020 to impose a new bond, once a 14-cents-per-$1,000 library bond is paid off. Jordan said with a new tax rate of 74 cents, taxpayers would see a net increase of 60 cents. “My concept is to take the first five years of that and get $70 million of the $120 million to pay towards the debt,” Jordan said. There’s about $40 million in the general fund that could be devoted to building the new jail, but Jordan said the county would continue to build its reserves in the next five to seven years. “For example, last year I think we built our general fund reserve like $18 million,” Jordan said. If construction goes past five years, Jordan said what’s been completed could be used as a supplemental facility. “We’ll be able to increase some capacity, until we can buy this cost down more,” Jordan said.